Neo-Corporatism

The Sites of Neo-Corporatism

After the defeat of fascism in Italy, National Social ism in Germany, and various other authoritarian regimes that flourished in Europe during the interwar period (1919–1939)—almost all of which claimed to be practicing some form of corporatism—the concept disappeared from the [Page 1669]lexicon of respectable political discourse, except in Franco's Spain and Salazar's Portugal, where the practice was left anachronistically on display until both countries transitioned to democracy in the mid-1970s.

At almost the same time, scholars from several countries and academic disciplines revived the concept to describe certain features of the politics of advanced democratic polities that did not seem adequately accounted for by the dominant model that had been applied to state–society relations—namely, pluralism. Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and tiny Luxembourg were singled out as archetypical “neo-corporatist” countries that had become deeply penetrated by this type of interest politics since the end of World War II. Important traces of its practice on a less centralized or more erratic basis have been observed in the politics of Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and even in postauthoritarian Portugal and Spain. Great Britain and Australia have attempted to establish similar arrangements without success. Elsewhere among the advanced capitalist democracies, neo-corporatism seems confined to specific sectors (especially agriculture). The United States, Canada, and New Zealand, for example, have never even tried to practice it at the macro or national level; France has only resorted to it in exceptional circumstances, as an emergency (and short-lived) measure.

At the core of this variation in practice were two political prerequisites. Unless they were simultaneously present (and this was a relatively rare occurrence), neo-corporatism in its most centralized and effective form would not emerge: (a) a relative balance of class forces between capital and labor and (b) an active disposition by state agencies to promote it. War and its aftermath provided one favorable context, as did the proto-revolutionary situation induced by protracted economic depression. Social-democratic or socialist party dominance in government, especially without serious competition from far left communist parties, was another. Both of these contributed to overcoming a major impediment—namely, the reluctance of capitalists and their associations to participate in and to be bound by such arrangements. Only when the alternative pluralist course of action was not viable did they embrace neo-corporatism and even willingly seek to exploit it to their benefit. Once these constraints waned, as both did in the 1970s and 1980s in Western Europe, so did neo-corporatist policy making—usually due to the defection of business interests. Neither the relative balance of class forces nor the simultaneous success of left-wing parties characterized North America or the countries of the White Commonwealth as much and, hence, its almost complete absence in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—except, interestingly enough, for a brief flirtation with something like it during the American New Deal.

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